I don't own Highschool DXD! Only OC's and all the bullshit I come up with!

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When Flames Rise – Chapter 7

In the Background

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Tiamat's life had taken a sudden turn when she had felt Issei's energy for the first time.

Before she had been introduced to him her life had been grim and boring. The familiar forest was a lively, but still boring place. Even in her part where the most dangerous creatures had their nest, every being cowered by her mere presence.

Sometimes every few years random dragons showed up and either challenged Tiamat to a fight for the territory or proposed to be her mate. Every single one of them regret having crossed her path. The weaker ones she let go with a warning to never return, but the slightly stronger ones, those that could be considered Mid-class Dragons or above, she obliterated. In her opinion a Mid- to High-class Dragon should already know his place in the ranking order and should already know that their chances against Tiamat were close to zero if not straight up impossible.

Sometimes when she could sense him, she went after Ddraig, but most of the time Ddraig's host wasn't in the forest or didn't release enough energy to catch her attention and thus it was rare for her to get into a confrontation with the Heavenly Dragon's host, but when she did, she always was the one coming out on top. Only twice she had lost against Ddraig, once against his strongest host and once against one of the strongest using [Juggernaut Drive] and dying afterwards, a pity that she wasn't the one finishing him off.

But those two events only happened every few years and in between her life was just straight up boring.

That was until Issei showed up.

It was a day like every other, grim, and boring, nothing to do, nothing going on. Tiamat was just lying in her cave, half-asleep.

Then something spiked.

It was almost unnoticeable, but due to it being dragonic and very unnatural Tiamat still barely picked it up. At first, she thought it could be a Dragon's birth, when those happen the young baby bursts out its entire aura, but… wasn't this a little too much aura for a simple hatchling? And it came from the human realm, meaning that she didn't even pick up the full extent of the power that had been radiating from there. This wasn't a hatchling.

Her interest immediately spiked, and she proceeded to make her way to source of the energy. It was in the Human realm in Japan, in a forest close to the edge of a town.

Landing there she was met with the sight of a human boy.

Normally she would have mindwiped the boy immediately and would have started searching for another individual that could have released the aura.

But the boy wasn't normal.

He didn't even flinch when she landed in front of him and was just staring her down, ignoring the intimating aura and energy that was radiating off Tiamat. It confused her. An adult human would have pissed himself when coming in contact with that amount of energy, but this little boy just casually took it to the face without showing any kind of struggle.

So Tiamat decided to investigate the boy. The problem was that his energy signature was cloaked. And it wasn't some Low-class cloaking that beings like herself could easily look through, this was some high quality cloaking skills. Of course, Tiamat could try to dismiss the cloak, but if she would succeed the boys energy signature would be picked up by all supernatural beings in a certain area depending on his full power.

Thus she decided to make an individual scan, that allowed her to see his energy without dismissing the cloak. But for that she required physical contact. So she touched the boy's forehead.

The sudden heat that overcame her body was incomparable. It was a bundle of power that just didn't seem to end. Instead of being like the cold and blunt infinite power of the Ouroboros it felt more like an enveloping warm aura that was borderline addictive.

But the best part was that it was a dragonic aura. The little boy was a dragon in the flesh. And he was perfect.

You see, Dragon love is very different from human love. There are two types of male Dragons. Some find themselves a perfect partner and basically bond with them, keeping them as partners for life, most of the Dragons that approached Tiamat had hoped to bond with her. And then there were Harem builders, Dragons that build themselves massive Harems with multiple women in them that are all attracted to their power.

Female Dragons on the other hand had only the bond type of approach. Why? Because female Dragons want to get strong children and thus having one powerful partner gives them way better chances than having a bunch of mediocre partners. Most of the times that partner only needs to be as strong or stronger than the female Dragon themselves, but some Dragons like Tiamat weren't satisfied with just that.

And because Tiamat was the strongest of the Dragon kings and desired to have pure Dragon children, getting a partner was near impossible. Albion was sealed and thus he was out of the game, Ddraig she hated for the things he had done, and she wouldn't even consider him, Great Red… the guy is so many levels above her own power that approaching him alone could be considered a suicide move and seeing as how uninterested he is in anything, Tiamat was sure that he would decline on the spot.

Great Red and Ophis were actually weird exceptions. Both of them don't lust for love, even though they could literally make anyone their partner. It is honestly a phenomenon that Tiamat doesn't understand and doesn't try to understand.

The boy she had just met was the only Dragon until now that fulfilled all requirements that she requested, and the best part was that he didn't seem to be driven by one of the seven deadly sins.

To be honest, that sounded like bullshit. But angels are basically the only existences that aren't affected by at least one of the so called 'Sins' that the followers of the biblical God created. The joke about those Sins is that most of them are natural in almost every creature, exception being angels of course. You need to be defective to not be affected by Lust in your puberty for example.

But this hatchling didn't seem to be affected by any of them. To be fair he seemingly was also untouched by the virtues and thus he was in an almost too perfect neutral zone that probably shouldn't even exist.

Maybe he was affected by the virtues or sins, but he just didn't show it. At least Tiamat couldn't sense anything like that from him.

But even if he was, Tiamat couldn't care less and then decided to declare this little boy as her mate.

With that declaration a one-sided bond was created, which was normally extremely dangerous for the Bonder who made the bond, because if the other person decides to decline the bond or form a bond with another person, the Bonder would be left with a broken bond that is almost impossible to recover, thus making it impossible to bond again.

But Tiamat didn't regret making a one-sided bond, because the boy didn't have any kind of emotional connection to anyone and thus the current chances of him making a bond with anyone else and breaking her bond were under zero.

That was until Ravel showed up.

==X==X==

Tiamat was impatiently walking around in the living room. Arms behind her back, head facing the floor, unclear mumbling coming from her mouth. It was obvious that she was worried.

After Issei had left the house, Tiamat had started asking Dante every few seconds if Issei was ok. At first Dante gave her brief explanations about Issei's surroundings so that Tiamat could herself judge if he was in a good or bad situation, but after the 20th or something time, he decided to give one-worded answers, that were thankfully enough to satisfy the Dragon Queen.

She had somewhat kept her cool about Issei by reminding herself that he was accompanied by the Ouroboros of all creatures.

Like seriously! Who can get themselves a freaking Dragon God as a bodyguard? Issei somehow.

She was still a little warry of the Ouroboros, fearing that she could try to make a bond with Issei, because of her attachment.

"Dante, what's his status?"

The former Reaper rolled his eyes, sighed, opened his mouth, and froze.

Tiamat immediately worried upon seeing his reaction to whatever he was currently seeing, and it didn't help that his eyes were widening at a rapid paste.

Dante went to the couch and sat down. Looking down with the most depressed look Tiamat had ever seen on his face.

"… D-Dante?"

No response.

"… D-Dante… W-What happened to… to Issei?"

Still no response.

"… Dante… What happened… to Issei?"

Expectingly there was no response.

"… Dante… Say something."

Unsurprisingly there was no kind of response.

"… Dante… Can you hear me?"

Like thoroughly predicted, there was nothing resembling a response coming from the depressed Dante.

"… This is bad… This is really bad…"

Thankfully, Tiamat didn't do anything stupid and-

"I'm going to kill those high school Devils."

Of course she did something stupid, this is my OCC Tiamat, what did y'all expect?

==X==X==

To say that Rias was in shock was a heavy understatement.

Her eyes were fixated on the TV as Akeno was frantically switching between TV channels, trying to find one that wasn't currently fully focusing on the burning Phoenix pillar territory. There were none.

The Gremory family was subscribed to a ridiculous amount of different TV channels, allowing all family members to have access to almost all of them with the exception of a few really tiny ones that nobody really cares about.

And every single one of them was talking about the white fire that was currently consuming the Phoenix estate.

Akeno abruptly stopped switching channels when Issei showed up on the screen… at least they thought it was Issei.

He looked like a fucking monster. White tiny eyes made out of uncontrollable white flames filled with killing intent. His figure was bigger and looked more threatening. The claws that had replaced his fingers were sharp and powerful, looking like they could keep up with the Power of Destruction in terms of literally causing destruction. Mouth twisted into a wicked broken smile that was showing far too many teeth.

This was most definitely NOT the Issei she had seen, met, or known.

This was a monster, ready to kill for its goals, ready to break the world for its goals, ready to bend reality for its goals.

And its goal was to kill the Phoenix pillar.

Rias had completely forgotten about the literal Dragon God that was sitting next to her, watching the screen with interest and surprise at the display of Issei's powers.

No one could blame her, after all everyone present in the room was slowly trying to process that they had been going to school with the same creature that they were watching on TV. The same beast that was completely stomping the Phoenix pillar without as much as breaking into a sweat, killing every and anything in its way.

THEY HAD BEEN GOING TO SCHOOL WITH THAT THING!

Akeno realized that trying to get to know Issei was a suicide attempt at best.

Koneko realized that Issei was a bigger threat to anyone than her sister had been to her master.

Kiba realized that challenging Issei to a duel to teach him a lesson on how to behave in front of his master was the worst idea he ever had.

Rias realized that Issei was a beast she would never be able to control, in any way. He could do whatever he wanted. She was no opposition he couldn't take down.

All four of them realized how weak they were, how abysmally weak and fragile they were compared to the stronger forces of this world.

Rias had been spoiled her entire life. She was used to being one of the strongest thanks to her school years back in the Underworld. It was normal for her to come out on top in most spars due to her having the Bael families Power of Destruction, that nobody could really compare to. Rias had never seriously trained, neither had her classmates. Never had she fully felt the true power behind battles she had seen in rating games, she had seen on TV. Mostly because she had never been exposed to blunt power that was far superior to hers. Issei was the first to not hold back his power in front of the heiress. It had scared her, but only now while witnessing him absolutely obliterate the entire Phoenix territory, she noticed how frightening, how powerful, how superior he was. Due to her brother being such a siscon he never ever gave her a taste of his full power and made her believe that she was almost halfway to being equal to a man in the top 10 strongest being of the universe list in terms of power. But Issei was something on a whole new level. His suppressed aura alone had been able to compare to her brother, but Now that she saw what somebody with such powers could do, she saw how small and fragile she was. She felt weak.

Kiba had never been superior to anyone he knew in his entire life. He wasn't superior to his brothers or sisters, that had died in the Holy Sword Project. He wasn't superior to Rias or his fellow peerage members. He wasn't superior to Rias brother or any of her family. He wasn't superior to the knight of Sirzechs, Souji Okita, who had trained him in the arts of swordsmanship. He wasn't superior to any of Devil society due to being a Low-class Devil and a reincarnated one at that. He wasn't even superior to any of the strays he had slain, those he had only surpassed in power, but he wasn't superior to them. But when hearing about Issei for the first time he, for the first time in his terrible life, felt superior to someone. Why? He didn't know. After Issei and Tiamat introduced themselves to the Devils he felt like he needed to teach Issei a lesson. Issei shouldn't take from those superior to himself and Rias was superior to Kiba, meaning that she also needed to be superior to Issei. He had planned to challenge the Dragon to a duel right after this meeting, to show him his superiority, but Raiser interfered. Probably saving his life. Now he didn't feel superior anymore. Those who he had seen as superior, Mid- and High-class Devils, were being obliterated by Issei left and right. Kiba would have struggled to beat any of those that Issei killed. That made him realize just how much superior Issei was to him, Rias, and most of the people he had ever met. He felt weak.

Koneko was used to feeling weak. At least she thought she did. She had been too weak to survive on her own and would have died in no time if it wasn't for her bigger sister. She had been too weak to help her sister's master or any of those who were under his wing. She had been too weak to stop her sister after the latter had gone mad and killed her master, who had been the only reason she had been alive at that time. She had been too weak to flee from the angry Devils. She had been too weak to survive on her own once more. But she got used to it. She got used to being the weaker of the bunch. Used to being a side character that had only a few uses and no needs to be attended to. A small fry that could be tossed around by anyone who had even an ounce of power. After meeting Sirzechs she thought to have felt the limit of power. The absolute maximum that anyone could go. Then Issei showed up. He broke the limits she had thought existed. He squashed those that could easily toss her around without any resistance. He didn't work after her System of power. He was too strong to be categorized. That wasn't just scary, it also made her realize how much she had underestimated the maximum of this world. She felt weak.

Akeno was already familiar with fear. She had felt fear when her mother had died due to her father. She had felt fear when she had been alone and on the run. She had felt fear when first taken under Rias wing. She had felt fear when she revealed her mixed heritage to Rias. She had felt fear when first introduced to Sirzechs Lucifer, Rias brother. She had felt fear when she heard about the arranged marriage between Rias and Raiser. But when Issei showed up, she hadn't felt any fear. Thinking that Rias had everything in control and that Sirzechs could deal with Issei if necessary. She was wrong. Issei was currently showing that he could wipe out an entire pillar family with ease. The sudden and utter fear she felt towards him at that moment was incomparable. It was too much for her. She didn't have the strength to fight through the new fear that had just settled in. The realization that he had been so close to her and with the ability to harm her with nobody able to stop him send shivers down her spine. Issei was a force of nature a massive powerhouse that seemed uncaring about anything and anyone. If she got on his nerves, there was nobody who could stop him. Raiser had shown her this. He annoyed, angered, enraged the powerful Dragon and now his entire family and all their servants had to pay for that. If she would follow his example Rias, Koneko and Kiba would all be in great danger and she could do nothing to help them. She felt weak.

Ophis?

Ophis was just happy that Issei was strong enough to defend himself.

Moments later the camera shifted from the figure of Issei to the four Satans arriving at the scene. Every Devil in the room felt hope surging up in them. They knew that Sirzechs was strong, and they also knew that his colleagues could also take a pretty hard beating. Issei shouldn't be able to keep up with them… right?

Right?

Issei killed Falbium.

…

Issei killed a Satan.

…

Issei fought against the other three.

…

Issei wasn't having problems.

…

Issei wasn't stopped.

…

Rias' world shattered right there and then.

Kiba felt how he was shrinking next to the true power scale of this world.

Koneko saw how she was nothing more than a tiny pawn in a game played by bigger pawns.

Akeno acknowledged that there was always something to fear.

Ophis smiled slightly.

The door was kicked in the next moment flying over all their heads getting stuck in the wall behind of the TV.

"WHAT DID YOU DO TO ISSEI!"

None of the Devils reacted to Tiamat's furious call. Her wings and tail revealed, eyes glowing bright blue, blue flames on the edges of her mouth and her limbs already dragonified.

Ophis turned around to the Dragon Queen, smile still present on her face, startling the powerful Dragoness. The all-powerful loli then pointed at the TV causing Tiamat to hesitantly come closer.

"… W-Wait! Is that… ISSEI!?"

The Dragon God gave her an almost unnoticeable nod.

Tiamat kept silent, watching Issei level the entire territory of a pillar family was almost addicting. Correction, it was addicting. Just seeing his flames devour everything in an unstoppable manner was intoxicating. Just seeing the display of clearly superior power made her legs feel weaker, her breath heavier and her face hotter.

The fact that he was keeping up with three of the four Satans worsened her state.

By now the entire territory had been coated by flames and the bigger structures were visibly evaporating at rapid speeds. The edges of the territory that had already been burned down were left behind by the flames, who were traveling to the middle most building of the estate.

Not even ashes remained.

Were once the walls, buildings, parks, people, anything really stood, was now earth. Nothing more nothing less. There was no sign other than the nonexistence of grass that the Phoenix pillar once stood there. Everything the flames took grip on was deleted from reality, taken apart atom for atom, deconstructed into nothingness. It was scary yet beautiful, everyone watching could agree on that.

==X==X==

"Hooolly Shit! The fire birdos just got disintegrated!"

Azazel had a hard time not looking at the TV. Never in his life had he ever seen such a spectacle. And with never he truly means never. Yes, he had seen a lot of death and destruction in the past, mostly during the Great War. But never ever had he seen the entirety of a pillar territory being consumed by flames and burned to the ground in no time. The fact that all of the Phoenix pillar members had a natural affinity to fire didn't help.

"That we already noticed. But what is this creature that was clearly in control of all those flames? I have never seen such a monster. And it would be a good idea to find out how it came to be."

Shemhazai was inspecting a screenshot of the creature that had been caught on Under-News! a fairly popular TV channel from the Underworld that was managed by the Oriax pillar.

The beast that was seen in the fire was horrific in every sense of the word. Seeing as it literally walked through the flames unaffected and probably even controlled them, it probably was Immune to any kind of fire damage and had a perfect fire affinity. Its physic suggested that it had incredible physical capabilities and the sheer ease with which the beast mowed down the devils made the fallen fear for what would happen if it decided to go all out.

"Yeah. It would be fun to find out where such a powerful being could have originated from without anyone noticing. The devils already pissed it off or at least the fire birdos did and now they're fucked. So if we somehow get in contact with that monstrosity of a monster, we should be really careful with our words."

"I agree and thus suggest that you won't be the one trying to make contact with that thing."

"Aw… Come on Shem! It's not like the guy could eliminate our entire species…"

Shemhazai gave Azazel a deadpan look as silence took over the room. Azazel slowly turned around to the TV where now the four Satans had arrived at the scene and witnessed how one of them was killed.

In a rare twist of events both Azazel and Shemhazai had the same expression. It was one of shock.

Yes, they had expected the thing to be powerful, but to kill one of the most powerful devils in a few seconds, was something neither of them had ever witnessed.

Sure, the original four had been killed during the Great War, but there they thought against the God of the Bible and two of the most powerful Dragons ever. The Last Battle of the Great War had lasted almost a week with all participants either ending up dead or sealed in the Dragons cases. It ended with their God drawing his last breath. The first Satan to fall had been Beelzebub who survived two whole days on the field, against their God and two heavenly Dragons.

This creature just did what took some of the strongest creatures Azazel knew two days in less than a minute.

A Satan. Dead. In less than a minute.

How. In. The. FUCK!

Whatever that thing was it could probably go toe to toe with their creator, the God of the Bible.

And that fact scared Azazel.

He would probably be classified as insane if he wouldn't fear someone of that level of power. Just imagine what such an entity could do.

At that moment Azazel realized how tiny their entire forces were against such a being. Azazel was the strongest amongst all the fallen and he was on par with the Satans, meaning that he wouldn't stand the tiniest of chances against it and thus the whole Grigori would be fucked right there and then if the monster decided to attack them.

They had to locate the thing as soon as possible and then either stay away from it as far as practically possible or get on the beings good side, so it won't delete the entirety of the fallen race.

But first Azazel had to deal with Kokabiel or else that warmonger might be faster in getting that thing on his side.

The thought send shivers down his spine.

==X==X==

Ravel wasn't scared.

She should be absolutely frightened. Running away like her life depended on it, which it kinda did, and never turning back, hoping that the thing chasing her wouldn't catch up.

But Ravel wasn't scared.

At least she should feel helpless, due to her family having been murdered right in front of her eyes, in a very brutal fashion.

The Phoenix pillar was known for a lot of things. One of those was the fact that fire attacks were absolutely worthless against them and that they had the strongest fire in the Underworld with the exception of the extinct Foras pillar who were able to control Hellfire.

Getting killed by the element they are known to control best isn't just devastating. It is also humiliating. In the worst way possible.

Her strongest weapon, fire, was useless against the beast that had slaughtered her family and without it she stood no chance.

But she wasn't helpless.

Shouldn't there be at least something resembling disgust? A beast had just murdered in front of her and her own family at that.

It should be repulsing, seeing the bodies of your loved ones being evaporated into nothingness.

She should be drowning in disgust wanting to get away from the murderer who had killed all who were important to her. Not just her family, but everyone she ever really got to know.

But she wasn't disgusted.

Every time she had thought about somebody hurting her family, she had felt scared, helpless, and disgusted.

But now.

Now that her worst fear was becoming reality, she felt normal, no, good.

If Ravel from a few hours ago would have seen and felt what she was currently witnessing, she would have passed out after puking out everything that had been in her stomach.

But now.

She was completely fine with what was happening. Ravel even felt herself hoping for the creature to win against her family.

The monster…

No it was more than that.

It was a being that she felt extremely close to.

It was a monster that she felt protected by.

It was a creature that she felt comfortable with.

It was…

It was her father…

Past Ravel would have strangled herself on the spot.

But Past Ravel wasn't here anymore.

Past Ravel hadn't met her father.

It didn't make sense, yet it was so logical.

She felt her own love, all of it, being directly directed towards him and then multiplied by an insane amount.

It wasn't romantic love in any way. It was family love. Love you feel towards your parents or siblings.

Love.

Something Issei wasn't familiar with.

It shook his entire mental landscape.

==X==X==

Something was big happening, Issei was sure of that.

He had been re-watching some of his favorite eroge anime when It hit.

What was It? No clue. But holy oppai filled heaven! This was the best he had ever felt ever!

*crack*

… What was that?

Issei was taken aback by the sudden sound of something hard cracking, like concrete after a heavy stomp.

Looking around in his room, searching for results he found that the door that had kept him in this enclosure for all this time had signs of decay on it.

A very happy smile that some would call psychopathic made itself known on Issei's face.

"Yes. Yes! YES! FUCKIN' FINALLY! A step in the right direction! An advance to the good things in life! A small spark of optimisms! The fucker's finally starting to get out of his shell!"

Joy got a hold of Issei as he partied in his small room still trapped in it, still not free from the prison, but soon he would be free, that much he knew.

==X==X==

Something changed.

But.

Nothing happened.

Still, something had changed drastically.

There was…

There was something new…

Something that didn't belong…

No.

It did belong.

There had always been a space for it.

But.

It had never been here before.

So it felt out of place.

At least for him it did.

But.

Nothing happened.

His chains remained.

His cage remained.

His goal remained.

To the other things also nothing happened.

The light was still unlit.

The door was still shut close.

The curtain still hung over.

The other one was still hiding in the dark behind a closed door waiting for his curtain call.

==X==X==

After calming down from what she had seen on TV, Tiamat decided to go home knowing that Issei would more likely show up there than back at the school where the devils were at.

Ophis followed her, knowing that Tiamat knew Issei better than she did and thus was likelier to successfully guess where he would appear next.

Finally reaching the house she entered only to find a crying Dante. Crying in the 'Tears are coming out of my eyes, but my facial expression hasn't changed' way.

Tiamat was confused and slightly shocked at the display. Ophis didn't even consider that his existence had importance to her and sat down next to him waiting patiently for Issei to come back.

"D-Dante… What happened!?"

The former reaper flinched when hearing her words, leaving his trance like state, and turned to the Dragoness with such a joyful expression that she almost fell on her butt due to it being so unexpected for her.

When she heard the door being gently opened from behind her she turned around to see who came into the house.

What she saw made her tear up in the same way that Dante did.

It was Issei.

Issei with a small girl who had a similar aura to him and was holding his hand like a small child would hold the hands of its parents.

But Tiamat didn't even notice the girl. She was way too focused on one thing and one thing only.

Issei.

He was smiling.

A small and gentle smile, but a smile none the less.

She tackled him the next moment breaking down in tears of happiness.

Issei just kept smiling.

He was happy.

For the first time in his life.

====X====X====

A/N:

Chapter 7 Baby!

And this time I actually have something to say in the A/N, how surprising.

First off, I wanted to tell you that this story was heavily inspired by another fanfic on this site that I recommend to all of you. It's called "Blood Lord Issei" by "An average Disturbed Fan". I read the first few Chapters and absolutely loved the first two where Issei's traumatic childhood were explained and written. I kinda lost it afterwards because in my personal opinion Issei should have been way more "broken" after the events that transpired in the first two Chapters. I just didn't like it. But you should still totally read it. I kinda copied the first two Chapters into my first Chapter with the new father being gang leader and the mother hating him, but my story already drifts off in a totally different direction from Chapter two.

Oh and no Dante is not me copying Veronica, he is an original character created by me that I made without her in mind, leave him alone.

In short, check out "Blood Lord Issei", don't expect something like my story, but still, read it.

I also wanted to clarify that this is NOT a HAREM story.

Issei has only Tiamat and ONLY Tiamat as his lover. Ravel is not a competitor (No incest in here) and Ophis won't gradually fall in love with Issei, she already loves him, but in a different way than Ravel and Tiamat do! Please don't get your hopes up.

I'm also working on a new story. No spoilers.

Anyway, have fun breathing while it lasts.

REVIEW this so I know what to improve.

I will await you until next time, Farewell.